NVIDIA “Smart Paintbrush” Turns Doodles Into Photo-Realistic Artwork

Content and Downloads, Display and TV by Orlaith CostelloMarch 21, 2019 Share

NVIDIA has revealed its latest AI-driven GauGAN image creator software that can turn simple doodles into photo-realistic artworks.

Using AI generative adversarial networks, the software named for the French post-Impressionist artist transforms a user’s mouse into a “smart paintbrush”.

Apps in the past have enabled users to transform photos into painted artwork, but NVIDIA goes further transforming simple mouse strokes into lifelike pieces.

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via NVIDIA

Via the software, users can draw the outline of a basic sketch and then fill it in with natural textiles, like grass, clouds, rocks, water, forest leaves and more.

The underlying technology is intuitive enough to include shadows from trees, reflections in water, and removing leaves from a tree in a winter image.

nvidia gaugan gif NVIDIA “Smart Paintbrush” Turns Doodles Into Photo Realistic Artwork

“It’s like a colouring book picture that describes where a tree is, where the sun is, where the sky is,” said Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning research at NVIDIA.

“And then the neural network is able to fill in all of the detail and texture, and the reflections, shadows and colours, based on what it has learned about real images.”

Although impressive, the software is limited. It cannot include any kind of texture, only those preloaded and while the images are good, they are not perfect yet.

However, it is indicative of where this technology could go.

In the future, this tool could be utilised by everyone from architects and urban planners to landscape designers and game developers.”